In Friday’s Part 2 of the junior’s conversation with Dave Curtis of Sporting News, Shepard talks about Tigers head coach Les Miles and the team’s opening game, against Oregon at Cowboys Stadium:

SN: How accurate is the public’s perception of Coach Miles?

Shepard: He’s very mild-mannered. Aggressive. And the last thing I would truly have to say, he’s a winner. And that’s not just speaking about football. The man lost his sister, went to the funeral. To go to your sister’s funeral and come back the same day and speak to all of us about academics, about summer workouts, about the next things for us. He’s a winner in life. We have a high graduation rate. We don’t have a lot of problems with us in the community. He accepts his role, that he’s a father figure for a lot of the young men on this team. A lot of us have no idea, don’t have a father. He substitutes for that. He’s just a winner.

SN: I get all that. But people connect with him with the crazy quotes, the hat, the eating grass. How does all that fit in?

Shepard: It fits into it because he takes a lot of distractions off us. That’s one thing he’s told us throughout the whole process. When I was recruited, I remember him telling me, ‘I’m going to put as much pressure on me as I can so that you guys can just go out and play football.’ ... Those things, he doesn’t do those on purpose. He doesn’t wake up and say, ‘I’m going to eat some grass. I’m going to do this and do that.’ But by his personality, it’s intended to take the pressure off of us. I mean, look at us. One thing about him at LSU, we haven’t had the poster child of Tebow, or Mark Ingram. Patrick Peterson was a great football player, and pretty much the face of the program. But coach wants to limit the attention around him and us so we can just go play.

SN: When did you know you were going to open this season with Oregon?

Shepard: We found out in January. (Miles) told us before we played A&M (in January).

SN: How did that affect how you watched the national title game?

Shepard: You’re watching the different positions. I watched Harris the whole time. Cliff Harris came up with me, probably one of the most athletic corners that came out of my class. I thought he was better than Dre Kirkpatrick. I watched him the whole game. Just like from a defensive standpoint, (LSU linebacker) Ryan Baker and those guys watched LaMichael James and the quarterback. I grew up with Darron Thomas. We were really good friends out of high school. I mean, it was real personal for us. Against Auburn, they pretty much exposed some of their weaknesses. There were some things we took from that game.

SN: What’s significant to you about opening with a game like that?

Shepard: Honestly, it’s one of the most anticipated games in a long time to open up a season. You pretty much, with all the polls and all the he-said, she-said, you’ve pretty much got Top 3 teams playing against each other. Athlete against athlete. LSU has always been known for its athletes. Oregon, same way. They’re known right now as having one of the most athletic teams in college football. Right now, you’ve got a game, especially with the whole NFL lockout, it’s one of the most anticipated match-ups. It’s the first game of the year. Possibly, it could end up being the last game of the year, too.

SN: How will the high preseason ranking and the Oregon game affect this team?

Shepard: I don’t really know. It’s up to us and the coaching staff, and how they organize, and how they constantly remind us that a ranking is only a ranking. If I’m not mistaken, Oregon was ranked low, or they weren’t ranked at all coming into the season. Same goes for Auburn. So watching what happened last year in college football, and seeing two darkhorses plays for the national championship, that kind of scared us. If you asked us, we’d rather not be ranked at all; it can be a distraction. But we’ve got strong enough character and could enough coaches to not let it affect us.